Mes premieres jours dans la ville de Paris

Salut de Paris!

I arrived in Gare du Nord two nights ago with nary a problem, and successfully navigated the metro to meet Thea at the stop nearest our hostel. It was my first ever practical implementation of conversational French, and it went fairly smoothly (when I asked an attendant for help with finding a line that went to Louvre-Rivoli). As the metro name suggests, our hostel is located very near to the Louvre. It’s a pretty central location and nice facilities, although the bureaucracy is somewhat annoying/unprofessional, but the two of us are working through that, as it were. It was pretty surreal for me to emerge from that subway station, though, and realize that I was in Paris, the city that I have most wanted to visit ever since my childhood studies of French. That was really exciting in itself, even though that night we were too tired from our travels from London to do anything else but crash (besides, by that point it was fairly late anyhow).

Yesterday morning, we woke up and got our petit dejeuner (breakfast) at a little café, ordering un croissant et un café noir (standard French fare- they’re not into large breakfasts, which is fine by me). The two of us first ventured across the Seine to the Musee d’Orsay, which was really nice, we saw Leonardo’s The Virigin on the Rocks amongst other works that aren't coming to mind yet. D'Orsay mostly houses the works that are too modern to keep in the Louvre, which includes a lot of Impressionist works. We got lunch at a little café (again) and I ordered a croque-madame (something I’ve also been dying to try ever since studying the French names of certain dishes in elementary school), which is a fried egg, ham and cheese sandwich. We then headed to the Opera Garnier (wholly unintentionally, as we were looking for a Tourist Information bureau, but we passed it and figured we might as well head in) which was very pretty as well, and where the Phantom of the Opera takes place which is really exciting! The actual auditorium is gorgeous, as is the entryway. The ceiling in the auditorium was painted by Marc Chagall, pretty neat.

We went back to our hostel to catch a breather, and then strolled out through the Jardin des Tulieres past the Louvre until it hit the Champs-Elysees. There is a lot of high-end retail shopping, and I kind of poked around but nothing particularly caught my fancy. We walked it all the way down to the Arc de Triomphe and got to see the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which I thought was really cool, I’ve always wanted to see it. Plus, we got to climb the stairs all the way to the top and that was a pretty neat view.

Afterwards, we headed back down the Champs-Elysees on the other side to make sure we didn’t miss anything, before doubling back and heading to the Eiffel Tower to meet Rex. Due to unforeseen metro complications, he met us kind of late but that was ok. We grabbed dinner at yet another café, I got un steak-frites (steak with fries) and we got to hear all about his travels in Edinburgh. Initially we’d intended upon ascending the Eiffel Tower that evening, but for one reason or another changed our minds, and we took the looonnnngggg walk back to our hostel. Seriously, from the Tower to the Louvre, it was probably close to 2 miles. We ended up at a McDonald’s (MacDo in French) because there was free wifi there, haha. Rex then left us and that concluded our first Parisian day.

This morning, we woke up and had our same breakfast before making our way through a walking tour of historic Paris, according to Rick Steves (who wrote this tour guide book that Thea swears by). We made our way towards l’Ile de la Citie started at the Notre Dame which was pretty, although far more gorgeous/impressive from the outside, I think (particularly from the sides/back, the front is the least impressive). We were planning on climbing the Tower, but the line was too long, so we made our way instead towards the Deportation Memorial, which honors the 200,000 French victims of the Holocaust. It was pretty startling after all the grandoise architecture we'd seen, as it's very simple yet moving and a definite change of pace. After that, we headed off towards the other side of the seine, through the Quartier Latin which was really awesome, we saw some old churches and grabbed lunch at a cheap gyros place. We next walked through the Sainte-Chapelle, which has the prettiest stained glass windows of any church I’ve ever seen, and then the Conciergement where many prisoners of the French Revolution were held, including Marie Antoinette. After that, we made our way back to l’Ile St. Louis where we got amazing ice cream (the best in Paris, apparently... it was really good!). We headed back towards the Louvre over the Pont Neuf bridge, which I thought was pretty cool because in my French class last semester we watched the film Les Amants sur le Pont Neuf, which takes place/was filmed on that bridge.

We then spent the rest of our afternoon at the Louvre. It was great, not my favorite museum though simply because it’s far too large/overwhelming with huge crowds, and it got a little bit overheated/claustrophobic at times. We paid for an English tour, which was informative although my audio thing didn’t work and I got separated from the group at one point, so that detracted slightly from the experience. The Mona Lisa was amazing though, I absolutely loved it, as well as the Venus de Milo. We also got dinner there, I had Liberian food which was AMAZING, I absolutely recommend it. After we left the Louvre, we got on a riverboat cruise of the Seine, which took us down past the Notre Dame before turning around and ending at the Eiffel Tower (after about an hour total). We hopped off and finally got in line!!!

So, the Eiffel Tower was an incredible experience, I’ll try to chronicle as much of it as possible. We stood in line for maybe 45 min before walking up, stopping on the first floor just to peek around, and continuing to the second. We took some pictures (the view is astounding, you literally can see all of Paris from every conceivable direction) before next immediately getting in line to take the elevator up all the way to the top. That was something, let me tell you. The view isn’t that much better, but the fact that you’re up almost 1000 feet above Paris, it was quite daunting and exhilarating at the same time. About this time it was getting dark, so the lights started coming on, and it was so lovely. We went back down to the second floor after 40 min or so and took more pictures now that it was night, and the city lights were absolutely gorgeous. The lights on the Tower started flashing then, and against the actual blue lights of the Tower, it was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. We only left the Tower reluctantly after grabbing a pastry to share, and I once again navigated the metro correctly back to our hostel, where I am now currently writing this entry.

Tomorrow is either Versailles or more explorations of Paris, we’ll determine in the morning. I am exhausted though, so bon soir tous les personnes!

** One final note though: Not to brag, I am impressed despite myself at my ability to use French well enough to get by in this city. I mean, I’m not fluent or anything, but I’m definitely not struggling (most of the time, anyway). I can buy our tickets, order at restaurants, ask for most kinds of help-- I’m not gonna lie, it feels pretty damn validating to actually get some practical usage out of my 7-odd years of French instruction!